Drivel. To the good: Ian McKellan was brilliant, but what else do you expect? He had just the right attitude to the piece. Sort of like Alan Rickman did with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It’s a shame a few more in the cast and crew didn’t realise what they were dealing with too.
Now to the bad. Well there was the script, who’s crapness, I assume, had a lot to do with source material. I will cheerfully admit I haven’t read the book and based on this interpretation I never will. I love stories about Grail lore and Mary Magdalene’s true role as a disciple but this was so bad it just left me with that rubber-necking feeling. What was that and did I really pay to see it?
Next: lighting. Clearly inspired by Chris Carter, of X Files fame. I assume to show how financial responsible they were they gave the lighting budget back to their backers. ‘Here guys, the audience doesn’t actually need to see what’s going on in the movie, you can have your money back.’ An occassional scene with subdued lighting might be aesthetically interesting but an entire movie where people don’t ever bother to switch the lights on so they can see each other and what’s going on around them is unbelieveable. Perhaps they thought if we couldn’t see we wouldn’t realise what a crap movie this was.
Hanks’ hair was very strange. Audrey Tautou was hidden from view by her hairdo. Jean Reno, who doesn’t have much hair to begin with, thought he was in another movie entirely.
As for the scenes of flagellation, what the heck?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? I assume they were in the book but quite frankly given the tone of the movie, completely out of place. Just about unhinged me.
I could go on but I think you get the idea. So my question is: am I actually going to see a half way decent movie this summer? What are the odds?
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